


hope

by yopumpkinhead



Category: A Dark Room (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-16
Updated: 2015-12-16
Packaged: 2018-05-07 00:44:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5437115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yopumpkinhead/pseuds/yopumpkinhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>she's a builder. her people are wanderers. </p>
<p>why is it that they destroy everything?</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semirose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semirose/gifts).



> Confession time! When I offered to write for _A Dark Room_ for Yuletide, I'd only played the Web version of the game. I had no idea that the iOS version was substantially different, or that _The Ensign_ existed at all. So I got to do a lot of mobile gaming in the name of research. I was absolutely fascinated by what I found, and I hope I was able to do justice to both the Builder and to the world of _A Dark Room_.

## The Ship

the warriors’ cheers echo through the ship, excited. she stands off to the side, looking out the wide viewport. she should be excited. the new world drifts below them, unaware. and yet.

{continue}

she’s a builder. her hands, made for creating. her voice, a song of birth. the warriors’ hands know only destruction. their voices know only madness and bloodthirst.

the admiral watches in silence. a permanent sneer on his face. she doesn’t turn to him when he approaches. after a moment he leaves again.

{continue}

the planet below is full of life. humans, bright with curiosity and joy. they’ve noticed the wanderer fleet. they’re preparing a greeting.

the admiral is preparing a massacre.

{continue}

it’s time. she falls in line with the other occultists. dread heavy and sick in her stomach.

when did _wandering_ become _destroying_?

{continue}

## The Vision

builders are still occultists. it’s rare for them to have visions, but sometimes they do.

hers is of a glowing locket set with a simple jewel. of hands that refuse to succumb to the bloodlust. of a wanderer, not a destroyer.

{continue}

the vision echoes through her mind. she sleeps, restless. she stares toward the horizon, unseeing.

always the locket, always the hands. they’re stained with old blood, just like hers. but they refuse to accumulate more.

{continue}

searching for those hands will be dangerous. the admiral watches her. the occultists look to her for guidance. she doesn’t want to endanger more lives.

she closes her eyes and tries to ignore the vision.

{continue}

## The Battlefield

she can hear the occultists’ chants. more weapons. more artifacts. more power. the light of the drills shines through her, pulsing. more more more.

{continue}

screams cut through the chants. dying humans, dying warriors. more warriors than humans, though. chaos everywhere. laser fire. bullets. swords.

she focuses on the light in her hands. ignores the next attack. the warriors who might have noticed, die in the assault.

{continue}

she speaks with the admiral. asks if there’s another way. he laughs.

this is the wanderer way, he says. conquest is the wanderer birthright. the humans have no more claim to this planet than do the insects who crawl in its dirt.

{continue}

she follows orders. she guards the warriors. she builds the drills.

she pleads with the admiral to stop.

{continue}

in the middle of the battlefield she sees a child. curled under its mother’s body. sobbing. she can see the mother’s blood spattered on its face and clothes. the mother died protecting her child, but the child won’t survive long on the battlefield.

she spots the locket a moment later.

{continue}

the locket glows in her hands.

it’s not quite like the one in her vision. it’s the right shape, the right jewel, but the cadence of its light is wrong. it’s a human cadence, though humans wouldn’t be able to see it. not many wanderers either. only the strongest of the occultists.

{continue}

cautiously she weaves a cadence of her own. the child has fallen silent under its mother’s body, paralyzed with terror. she ignores it. focuses on the light weaving through her hands.

the locket’s glow brightens. its cadence changes, strengthens. she can see what it wants to build now. she’s not sure she can do it.

{continue}

no one comes near her. wanderers know not to disturb a builder. the locket’s light flashes brilliant against the dark bloody battlefield.

the mother draws in a shaky breath.

{continue}

she doesn’t move as the mother scrambles to her feet. she wants to explain what happened. wants to apologize for the bodies bleeding out around them.

she says nothing. the mother gathers the child into her arms and flees.

{continue}

the locket hangs heavy around her neck when she goes to the admiral. she pleads once more. stop this destruction. stop this death.

the admiral turns her away.

{continue}

## The First

she’s not the only one. hushed whispers speak of rumors speak of secondhand tales of wanderers who question. wanderers who see the humans’ bravery and are impressed.

wanderers who no longer want to destroy.

{continue}

she doesn’t dare add her voice to theirs. she’s too visible, too well-known. the admiral can tolerate whispers of dissent in the rank and file, but not in the occultists.

but she doesn’t discipline those she hears whispering.

{continue}

the first one is an accident. a wanderer warrior who saw her compatriots targeting a human child. children shouldn’t suffer, the warrior said. this isn’t their war.

protecting the child cost her her arms, all but two. when her compatriots saw, they mocked her. calling her human. calling her traitor.

the warrior said that if they wanted to call her a traitor and a human, then that’s what she’d be.

{continue}

when she hears about the warrior with the lost arms, she thinks maybe this is it. maybe this is the wanderer she’s been searching for. she seeks her out, using occult power to track her where she’s hiding among the humans.

the warrior fears she’s come to kill her. takes a while to convince her of the truth. the warrior asks for strength. asks for hope.

{continue}

the warrior isn’t the one. two hands aren’t enough for what needs to be done.

{continue}

## The Rebellion

she starts building cauters. they’re simple. take little enough power. the drills don’t even notice the loss. the warrior performs the first rituals. wanderers kneeling before her, the cauter hissing as it takes their arms.

the humans greet their new companions with trepidation, but also relief. the war still rages, and they need all the help they can get.

{continue}

word about the cauters spreads. she builds more, as many as she can. she doesn’t care about being noticed anymore.

the admiral knows, but there are too many battles to be fought. the humans’ army welcomes new wanderer defectors every day.

{continue}

the warrior dies in a skirmish with the admiral’s elite platoon. he’s started targeting human battalions with high numbers of defectors. the defectors have righteous passion on their side, but the wanderers have betrayed fury.

{continue}

the defectors are growing afraid. they need something to hold them together.

they need a leader.

{continue}

she never planned on this. she never expected them to look to her. but she made the cauters. she helped the first wanderers became defectors.

she’s a builder. she’s the strongest of them. when she takes up the humans’ mantle, the defectors flock to her.

{continue}

## The Long Battle

she wants the ritual. wants to be like those who follow her. but she can’t build with only two arms. they need a builder more than she needs to be like them.

{continue}

she builds for them. huts to shelter the wounded. weapons to fight with. artifacts of strength and speed and stamina, to give them the power to overcome the loss of their arms.

the humans are fascinated. she wishes she could teach them. but they can’t see the cadences of the light.

{continue}

the admiral is furious at her. new defectors tell of orders to kill her. the humans want to hide her.

she tells them that hiding will only make the admiral believe he’s right.

{continue}

the drills continue to dig. the executioner continues to charge. the seven sisters rise and set, chased by orion.

the war rages on.

{continue}

## The Admiral

he finds her on the battlefield. she wills away a barrage of laser fire, and he’s standing there in the smoke and the haze. blood, human and wanderer both, drips from his weapons.

he smiles when he sees her.

{continue}

this is it.

{continue}

she fights. she calls weapons to her hands, building them from the songs of the light that flashes around the battlefield. she spins and dances through the admiral’s attacks, her arms weaving light to defend her.

{continue}

the humans try to help. they push back the admiral’s elites. they protect her from the others.

they can’t protect her from the admiral.

{continue}

the defectors join the fight. screams of fury with every drop of her blood that stains the ground. they were wanderers once. they can match the admiral for speed and strength.

they can’t match him for skill. they die quickly, their bodies piling up around her.

{continue}

## The Fall

she’s exhausted. the cadences of light scream through her head. she’s a builder, not a destroyer. the admiral bleeds, but she bleeds more.

the locket hangs heavy around her neck.

{continue}

the humans see it coming before she does. she hears their cries of terror, of rage.

the admiral lifts his guns.

{continue}

she tries. she tries so hard.

she fails.

{continue}

## The Locket

she wakes.

a human kneels over her. light playing over her face. a child clutched in her arms. slowly she recognizes her. the mother whose locket now hangs around her neck.

{continue}

the mother draws her hand back from the locket. it’s warm against her skin. she can hear the cadences woven through it. cadences the human shouldn’t be able to sense, shouldn’t be able to weave.

she managed it anyway.

{continue}

she doesn’t say anything. neither does the mother. the world is dark and cold. no moons hang in the sky. she knows the executioner was fired. knows this world is doomed.

the mother gives her one last look, then takes her child and hurries away.

{continue}

## The Dark Room

she’s cold. shivering almost too hard to walk. the forest is dark and empty.

there’s light up ahead. dim and flickering. light means warmth.

{continue}

the room is warm. there’s a wanderer stoking the fire.

maybe it’s this one. maybe this wanderer is the one she’s looking for.

{continue}

she says she’s a friend. says she can build things.

the wanderer lets her stay.

{continue}

maybe this time it’ll be different.

{ **the end** }


End file.
